The characters are authentic with real life sensibilities, and woven deep into the scenes, real life reactions to the unexplainable and very human compulsions. Doubts, curiosity, trust, friendship and love - all real life struggles are explored from Erin's POV. The book dives straight into the mindset of Erin Solomon, as well as giving the supporting characters their own attributes and history.

The plot is twisted, the tone set by the strange, mysterious even, family and cult history. As the story progresses the reader feels the tension as Erin struggles to find out about her own past, as well as hunt down the real arsonist and murderer.

The story keeps a great pace, turning clue after clue, searching for the answers. The ending seems real life - often we don't get the complete picture, but we answer our questions one step at a time. It is a great way to do a sequel - and with this part completed, the reader wants to know more... so on to the next stone.

Great tension - great scenes - Jen Blood developed an organic storyline. Great writing and reading all around. ( )

By page 15 I was hooked, I could not set the story aside. Suspense, twists and turns to the plot, characters that change by the next chapter, and an Angel of Death. Recommended it you like thrillers and suspense. ( )

All the Blue-Eyed Angels by Jen Blood
2 stars

Good book. Started slowly, she kept going back over & over the same background info and plot points so it was a little tedious. Okay, the island was deserted and spooky, you have a dog and a tragic past; got it, now tell me the story without revisiting those points over and over.

Once the author got comfortable with her characters & locations, she moved the plot right along. It was told in first person which made sense but she switches to a different character's point of view to go over yet again the mysterious island and the tragic fire. I would have liked less of that and more of the family story and interaction between the characters. They weren't fleshed out too well so more depth to them would have helped understand their actions a little better. Also, several choices made by Erin didn't make sense if she was an investigative journalist. I kept wondering why she didn't just make a call or go talk to someone instead of all the nail biting and indecision.

I 'get it'-this is romantic fiction with a mystery twist but it turned out to be not very romantic nor very mysterious. Blood tried to walk that thin line between dropping enough clues to keep the reader interested and giving the whole thing away-she succeeded at keeping me in the dark so much that I didn't really care by the end who had done it or even much of why they did it. But, I will say the last two chapters of the book were a lot tighter and I was intrigued enough by the clue crumbs about Erin's father that I will read the next in the series.

Also spotted a minor error that bugged me to the point I stopped reading and looked it up for myself! The entire sentence could have been left out-it had no relevance to the story and only served to make me wonder what else the author tried to slip past me. ( )